Javierdude22: Oi...how could I have missed this?!
O well, you're never too late.
On th Isreal-palestine conflict thing. AJ, you were right about Sharon causing the upsurge and the 2nd Intifada. However, the site is holy to both Jews and Muslims so I can hardly call it a 'reason' to start the Intifada.
Both Isreal and Palestine are doing some really shitty things currently. Both are not doing anything to resolve this, especially since two hawks (Sharon and Arafat) are leaders. However, we did see suicide bombs go off with Rabin, Peres, Barak and Netanyahu as well. Three of them pleaded peace and did a lot to pursue it.
But if we go back, than in my opinion Israel has every right to defend itsself like it does. Look, the Jews have been slaughtered by many countries, often systematically, and espcially during the 2nd WW. They were like gypsies, outcasts without a country. They were offered a country by Britain in 1903, the current Uganda (hello!?) but Jerusalem and the land around it was their homecountry, the Holy land. So after a lotta hassle (Nobody wanted to give Israel their own land) Britain divided Palestine and Israel up in to two parts (both had good pieces of land). The Arab countries around it said they would attack the country immediately, as they have a deep and biblical hate towards eachother, if they would get an independant country. Some leaders even professed to 'wipe it off the map' so the Palestinians could have all the land.
In 1948, a day after independancy was claimed, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and Saudi Arabia attacked Israel. All of them, with a political mandate of even more countries. Israel had no weapons at all, it is said they had one fighterplane and a buncha canons. After a few days of hard battle, the US helped them out. And they won, and took more land they were entitled to according to how the British divided it. In my opnion, that is tough noogies on the Palestinians for starting the war anyways. Many palestinians became homeless (again, tough luck IMO), a consequence of war. In 1967 the same ritual started. I dont know hów many Arab countries attacked Israel at the same time, thinking they would surely win. The lost, and big stretches of land to go with it. In my opinion again, tough noogies on all of them, if you have the talk, do the walk and dont cry when you lose. Thats like saying you wanna play poker for 100 dollars but ask the money back when you lose.
So in that respect, I think the current situation is justifiable in the Israelian case. Israel has even given all the surrounding countries their land back.
On the Iraqi thing. Gig, I still think you have a very one sided view to this, believing everything coming from the conservative side, and literally nothing coming from the 'liberal' side (liberal in the US is conservative to us Dutch, Liberal in Holland is blasfemy in the US). And that simply cause its liberal.
I keep open the notion that WMD might be found. It might very well be that Saddam hid them in a very good place somewhere. But like Inwood said, it was hardly the reason to invade Iraq. And that is what stings me the most. That an administration will taunt world politics, peace, and prosperity without even a sigh or second thought that easily, scares me. A world power cannot stir up the world with information that is not solid as a rock. 'Pro active defence' is something that hurts my ears in the meantime as more soldiers and civilians have been killed, and more soldiers are in need of therapy than this entire operation is trying to prevent eventually. And no, helping the Iraqi people be free from a dictator was not the first, second, third, and not even fourth reason Bush invaded Iraq. It was a bonus. Merely...
